Sarah M. Pike

California State University, Chico campus site.Sarah M. Pike is an American author and professor of comparative religion in the Department of Religious studies at California State University, Chico. Her interests include paganism, environmentalism, religion and ecology, and ritual studies. She is the president of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, co-chair of the American Academy of Religion, Ritual Studies Group, and director of the California State University, Chico Humanities Center.

Education Pike completed her Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in Religion at Duke University in 1983. She earned her Master of Arts and PhD (with distinction) in Religious studies from Indiana University Bloomington in 1989 and 1998 respectively. Her doctoral advisor was Robert Orsi. During her time at Indiana University Bloomington, Pike extensively observed and involved herself within local (Midwestern) neopagan communities and gatherings as part of her field research.

Publications Books Pike's most recent book titled For the Wild: Ritual and Commitment in Radical Eco-Activism covers issues regarding the demonization of radical environmentalists and how religious studies translate into nature and ecology. In her book, New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, Pike sees members of neopagan religions as placing high emphasis on ritual practice as a way of shaping individual and group identities, having significant connections with nature, and understanding God as a living entity.

Pike, Sarah M. (2017) For the Wild: Ritual and Commitment in Radical Eco-Activism, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Pike, Sarah M. (2004) New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, New York: Columbia University Press. Pike, Sarah M. (2001) Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Selected articles and book chapters Pike has written several articles and book chapters on topics such as Burning Man, neopaganism, rituals, environmentalism, youth spirituality, New religious movement and animal rights activism. +YearJournal/BookArticle/Chapter2018Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Nature, edited by Laura Hobgood and Whitney Bauman. London: Bloomsbury. 2016Spiritualizing the City: Agency and Resilience of the Urbanesque Habitat, edited by Victoria Hegner and Peter Jan Margry (New York: Routledge) "The Dance Floor as Urban Altar: How Ecstatic Dancers Transform the Lived Experience of Cities”2014Social Science Research Council Forum, “Reverberations: New Directions in the Study of Prayer." "Sweating Our Prayers in Dance Church"2014Religion and the Marketplace in the U.S., edited by Detlef Junker, Jan Stievermann, and Philip Goff. London and New York: Oxford University Press "Witchcraft Since the 1960s”2011Children and Religion: A Methods Handbook, edited by Susan B. Ridgely. New York: New York University Press "Religion and Youth Culture”2010God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture, edited by Katherine McCarthy and Eric Mazur. New York: Routledge, Inc. "Desert Goddesses and Apocalyptic Art: Making Sacred Space at the Burning Man Festival"2010Weinhold, J. & Samuel G. (eds.) "The Varieties of Ritual Experience," in Ritual Dynamics and the Science of Ritual. Volume II – Body, Performance, Agency and Experience, ed. by Axel Michaels et al. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz "Performing Grief in Formal and Informal Rituals at the Burning Man Festival”2009Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 77: 647–672."Dark Teens and Born-Again Martyrs: Captivity Narratives After Columbine” 2008Key Words in the Study of Media and Religion, edited by David Morgan. New York: Routledge "Gleanings from the Field: Leftover Tales of Grief and Desire”

Awards and recognition Selected position board of directors, American Academy of Religion Chair, American Academy of Religion's Committee for the Public Understanding of Religion

Awards